by K. W. Jeter
their yellow standby mode.
It had taken a few moments for Zuckuss to realize
that this intimidating and unfamiliar entity was only
partially conscious at that moment. The square, heavily
armored box mounted beneath the laser cannon's curved
forward support, resembling a thick breastplate with rows
of input sockets and flickering LEDs, was the repository
of all of D'harhan's cerebral functions, surgically
encased and transferred there from the emptied skull,
discarded like an empty combat-rations container when the
massive weapon's base had been drilled into the
collarbones and vertebral column. What Boba Fett had
described of the operation had been enough to set
Zuckuss's spine crawling. It was one thing to augment
oneself with weapons and detection systems-Zuckuss
frankly envied Fett's impressive array of sensor and
destructive devices; the man was a walking armory- but to
go beyond that, to have whole major sections of one's
anatomy cut away and replaced with dura-steel and attack-
level charge batteries, to actually turn oneself into a
weapon rather than just a bearer of weapons ... a sick
feeling had moved inside Zuckuss's gut as he'd spied upon
the sleeping D'harhan. That's where it ends up, he'd
thought gloomily. If you go all the way. The segmented
metal tail, the third leg of the laser cannon's tripod
support, curled around D'harhan like a defensive barrier
separating him from contact with the universe of living
things. . . .
Zuckuss had taken a cautious step closer in the Slave
I's hold. He'd known that D'harhan wasn't so much asleep
as just partially shut down, conserving energy for the
ever-alert weapon above his torso, its glowing lights a
simple constellation in the darkness. A residual circuit
was triggered by Zuckuss's approach; one of the black-
gloved hands turned the illuminated screen of the
keyboard voice box outward. do not disturb me, read the
screen, its audio function switched off. leave me be.
Like a sleeping dragon in a cave, the fiery destruction
of its breath only smoldering ...
The silent warning had been enough; Zuckuss had been
only too happy to retreat to the ladder leading back to
the Slave Fs cockpit. The dark, somnolent, yet
threatening form of the creature who had turned himself
into a weapon aroused mingled dread and nausea inside
Zuckuss. Once, before he'd decided to become a bounty
hunter himself, he'd caught a fleeting glimpse of Darth
Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith, commanding a punitive
sweep of Imperial stormtroopers across the capital city
of a world that had been slow to pay obeisance to the
distant Emperor Palpatine. The thought had struck him
then, as it did again now, that there were some paths one
could follow, where even if one wound up powerful beyond
one's dreams, one also became somehow diminished, as
though the essence hidden inside the armor were
progressively stripped away and replaced with unfeeling
metal and circuitry.
That was all too deep to think about, especially now,
when he had allied himself with creatures like Boba Fett
and D'harhan. Maybe later, Zuckuss had mused as he'd
climbed the ladder to the cockpit. If there was a later.
"I don't get that voice-box device he carries
around." Zuckuss nodded toward the ladder and the hold
below. "Seems kind of awkward. I would've thought
something that left his hands free would be more useful
for communicating."
"D'harhan doesn't have a lot of need for com
municating." Boba Fett's voice sounded dryly amused. "And
before, when there were others like him, they coordinated
their actions with their own internal comm network."
"There were others? Like him?" That seemed a
dismaying prospect to Zuckuss. "What happened to them?"
Fett made no reply.
Zuckuss tried another question. "What was he like
before?" He didn't even feel like saying the other's name
aloud. "Before he became . . . what he is now?"
"That's none of your business." Boba Fett didn't take
his eyes away from the Slave I's controls. "He's been as
he is for a long time. If you never knew of D'harhan
before, it's because he minds his own business, in
regions of the galaxy where such as you never travel."
Fett glanced over his shoulder at Zuckuss. "For which you
should be grateful."
The discussion of the final team member was
concluded; Zuckuss knew better than to ask any more
prying questions. I'll be glad when this fob is over, he
thought ruefully. Things had been getting increasingly
sticky back at the Bounty Hunters Guild, with its rapidly
thickening air of conspiracy and stealth, the various
backstabbing alliances forming and dissolving and
recoalescing with new partners and enemies on a daily,
even hourly basis. Going on this Oph Nar Dinnid job,
dangerous as the Shell Hutts' defenses were reputed to
be, seemed like a piece of baked confectionery by
comparison. But even here, in the starless void of
hyperspace, Zuckuss knew he was still in the
uncomfortable midst of those dangerous spiderwebs; all it
would take would be for Bossk or Boba Fett to find out
that he was working from Cradossk's agenda, and he'd be
pitched out into vacuum from either the Slave Fs or the
Hound's waste chute, boots first. Agreeing to Cradossk's
schemes was beginning to look like less of a good deal
now that Zuckuss was out here, with nothing to count on
but his own smarts and urge to survive.
"Stop fidgeting." Boba Fett spoke without looking
around at Zuckuss. "Brace yourself; we're about to drop
into sublight space."
Zuckuss was already familiar with the Slave I's
abrupt navigational transitions; Fett's working vessel
was stripped of any deceleration buffers that might have
impaired its speed or fighting abilities. The ship
consequently slammed from one transit mode to another
with a gut-wrenching impact. Zuckuss grabbed either side
of the hatchway and averted his lidless eyes so he
wouldn't have to see the stars blur sicken-ingly into
focus beyond the cockpit's main viewport.
"There's Bossk."
Opening his eyes, Zuckuss saw the Hound's Tooth
floating before them, engines shut off. A signal light
flashed, and Boba Fett reached over and pressed the comm
button. "Fett here. Have you made contact with the
Circumtore landing authorities?"
"Positive on that." IG-88's flat, expressionless
voice sounded from the cockpit speaker. "Approach and
landing permission has not-I repeat, not-been granted."
"I didn't expect it would be," said Boba Fett dryly.
"When people like us show up, hardly anyone puts out a
welcome mat."
"At the conclusion of our last exchange, the Shell
Hutts indicated they would
be sending out a negotiator."
"What level?"
Bossk's voice broke into the discussion. "The fat
slugs said it would be an Alpha Point Zero. What's that
mean?"
Boba Fett kept his thumb on the comm button. "That's
the Shell Hutts' top authority level. They don't go any
higher than that. So it means two things One, we don't
have to bother with any small-fry underlings, and two,
they're taking our arrival very seriously."
"When this negotiator gets out here, what's our
plan?" Bossk sounded hungry for action, as though the
journey out from the Bounty Hunters Guild had been an
eternity of chafing inaction. "Kill him?"
Typical, thought Zuckuss, slowly shaking his head.
He'd had enough experience with Bossk to know that that
was always his Plan A. And there usually wasn't a B.
Fett glanced over his shoulder at Zuckuss. "Don't
worry." He turned and pressed the comm button again. "We
can be a little more subtle than that. You and IG-88
should transfer over here to the Slave I before the Shell
Hutts' negotiator arrives. But remember-I do the
talking."
Bossk's ship, the heavily armed Hound's Tooth, was
left in autostandby, its alarm systems set to refuse
entry to anyone other than its returning master. Zuckuss
was aware of the level of Bossk's paranoia, and the
number of lethal booby traps he had installed throughout
the Hound, all to prevent anyone from invading his base
of operations. That was the main reason Zuckuss had gone
instead with Boba Fett; his nerves had still been frayed
from the last time he had been aboard the Hound's Tooth,
when he'd constantly had to be on guard against setting
off any of the security devices. Better to let the bounty-
hunter droid IG-88 take the risk, even if it meant losing
track of Bossk-the main reason Zuckuss was on the team
for this job-for the duration of the journey.
He went down into the Slave J's holding area to open
the transfer hatch between the two ships. The hunched
shape of the partially shut-down D'harhan filled one
corner of the area; he could feel the laser cannon's
standby optics registering his presence, lifting the
weapon's barrel slightly and turning it in his direction,
as he stepped from the bottom rung of the ladder.
From the small viewport beside the hatch, Zuck-uss
could see the Hound's Tooth being maneuvered into docking
position. When it had connected with the Slave I, Zuckuss
hit the hatch release controls; a sharp hiss sounded as
the two ships equalized their internal atmospheric
pressures. The hatch irised open, and Bossk and IG-88
stepped aboard. Bossk pressed a button on the remote
cockpit control at his waist, and the Hound disengaged
and drew into a parallel orbit above the surface of
Circumtore.
"Where's Fett?" Bossk scanned the Slave I's holding
area. Though it was the largest open space aboard the
ship, it was already cramped with the three bounty
hunters in it. Boba Fett's ship was built for speed and
destruction, not comfort.
Zuckuss pointed to the ladder leading to the cockpit.
"He's still up there. I think he's getting ready for the
arrival of the Shell Hutts' negotiator."
His guess was proved correct when Boba Fett's voice
crackled from a speaker mounted on the bulkhead. "We'll
need to make room," said Fett over the ship's internal
comm system. "I've just been informed that the negotiator
is one of the Shell Hutts; they didn't send one of their
pet intermediaries. If we're going to get one of those
tanks aboard here, we'll need all the space we can get."
"I don't see how . . ." Zuckuss turned, looking
around the Slave I's holding area. "The only room down
here is in the cages."
"So?" Boba Fett's voice spoke again. "What's the
problem?"
Bossk glared at the cages where Boba Fett kept his
captured pieces of merchandise, en route to collecting
the bounty on them. "I'm not going in there," he growled.
"You're the biggest one here," Zuckuss pointed out
helpfully. "Except, of course-" He pointed to D'harhan's
massive bulk, the laser cannon's barrel protruding
slightly above the drawn-up knees and encircled metal
tail. "For him."
The three bounty hunters looked over at D'harhan.
"I don't know," said Bossk. Even he seemed in
timidated by the presence of a fully charged laser cannon
in their midst. "Maybe it's not a good idea to wake him
up."
too late. One of D'harhan's hands tapped out another
message on the silenced voice box and turned its glowing
screen toward them, I hear . . . EVERYTHING YOU SAY.
Zuckuss and the other two bounty hunters stepped
back, spines against the bulkhead, as the roused D'harhan
slowly stood up, the segmented metal tail drawing around
behind him. The housing of the laser cannon mounted onto
D'harhan's chest and shoulders reached above even Bossk's
head. The massive weapon's tracking systems regarded the
bounty hunters in silence for a moment.
"Watch out!" Zuckuss's cry was involuntary, triggered
by the sight of the indicator lights on the laser cannon
suddenly surging to red. He dived to the floor as Bossk
and IG-88 scattered to either side of the cramped holding
area.
On the gridded floor, with his arms pulled over his
head, Zuckuss heard the quick, sharp sizzle of a laser
bolt, then another; their glare lit up the space,
stinging his eyes. In the quiet that followed, he could
smell ozone and scorched metal.
Lifting his head, Zuckuss saw the lights on the side
of the animate laser cannon dwindling back down to yellow
and safety. Flanking the holding area, Bossk and IG-88
looked first toward D'harhan, then toward the target of
his ramped-down laser bolts. The impacts had been
precisely calculated and aimed, shattering the hinges of
the main merchandise cage; fragments of molten durasteel,
scattered across the floor, glowed a dull red. Wisps of
acrid smoke rose from the edge of the cage door as it
fell with a resounding clang.
"there," spoke D'harhan's voice box aloud.
"NOW YOU SHOULD HAVE ... NO OBJECTIONS."
"Your point is valid." IG-88's circuitry had re
covered completely from the sudden burst of laser fire.
The droid stepped over the bars of the fallen door and
into what was left of the cage, then turned around.
Bossk regarded D'harhan for a moment longer, his
slitted eyes looking up at the cooling laser cannon with
something like envy, then followed the other bounty
hunter into the area's adjoining space, now incapable of
being shut and locked.
That'll take some fixing, thought Zuckuss. Con
sidering the proprietary attitude that Boba Fett natu
rally took toward the Slave I and its fittings, he was
more
than relieved that D'harhan had blown the holding
cage hinges and not him.
At that moment Boba Fett appeared on the ladder
coming down from the cockpit. The bounty hunters watched
as Fett's visored gaze turned toward the cage in which he
transported his merchandise, then down to the barred door
lying in front of it.
"That's coming out of your share," Fett told
D'harhan.
The black-gloved hand moved across the voice box's
keyboard. "no, it's not."
For a moment longer they stood facing each other-one
masked behind the visored helmet, the other faceless
except for the muzzle of the laser cannon-before Boba
Fett finally gave a slow nod. "We'll talk."
"There's a ship approaching." Zuckuss pointed to the
viewport. "It must be the Shell Hutts' negotiator."
In the viewport, a spherical craft moved closer to
the Slave I; a simple off-planet shuttle, it displayed
tortoise insignia of the Shell Hutts and a diplomatic
emblazon showing its unarmed status. The shuttle's
forward hatch had already deployed its docking arms,
ready to hook up with the Slave I's transfer hatch.
A few moments later, as Zuckuss manned the hatch's
controls, a broad face with a slit gash of a mouth
appeared floating before the bounty hunters. The
elongated, tapering cylinder of the Shell Hutt negotiator
moved with ponderous grace into the holding area, its
underside repulsor beams pushing invisibly against the
floor grids. As the end of the tanklike casing made it
through the transfer hatch, Zuckuss hit the button and
irised the hatch closed again.
"Ah, Boba Fett!" The casing, studded with rivets and
various maintenance ports, swung about in the holding
area, past the other bounty hunters and toward the figure
standing near the metal ladder. A leering smile formed on
the Shell Hutt's face. Tiny mechanical hands dangled
beneath a gleaming chromium collar, sealed tight around
the wattled gray flesh of its neck; the claws, delicate
as a scuttling sea crab's, clicked happily against each
other. "How pleasant to see you again."
Fett's response was dry and emotionless. "My
feelings, Gheeta, are the same as the last time we met."
Bossk spoke from the holding cage. "You know this
creature?"
"We've had . . . business dealings." Fett didn't look
back at the Trandoshan. "A couple times before."
"And very profitable they were, too." The cylinder